Encourage Academic Mobility In Africa • Minister Tells African Universities

The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, has called on African universities to co-operate and consider ways that would encourage academic mobility within the continent to promote the flow of talent, expertise and attract qualified labour force.

He said instead of bemoaning the negative side of staff mobility, African universities must think of creative ways of maximising the global trend to its advantage and make it a “brain gain”.

Academic mobility is the strategic means to open higher education systems globally to promote the flow of talent that will attract highly qualified labour force.

The Minister of Education made the call when he addressed the opening session of a two-day workshop dubbed: “Access to Success” in Accra. It was on the theme “ Fostering trust and exchange in higher education between Europe and Africa”.

He said higher education played a crucial role in the development of a nation and the Government of Ghana would always participate in initiatives which served as a platform for discussion and sharing of ideas.

Mr Tettey-Enyo noted that many African countries had experienced deterioration in their public higher education programmes.

This is because although at independence the colonial masters left them with a legacy of one public university each, which produced the human capital that took over the reins of government, there was the problem of mismanagement of their economies, population explosion and lack of commensurate resources to maintain and expand their higher education infrastructure.

This, he said, made it almost impossible to retain a reasonable level of faculty in higher education institutions leading to the brain-drain of Africa’s brightest and best.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said another phenomenon facing African universities was the emergence of private higher education institutions, whose academic staff were mainly lecturers from public universities teaching on part-time basis in what is popularly known as ‘moonlighting’, which was also a form of internal mobility.

He said academic mobility had, indeed, become an extremely topical issue for universities around the world.

He, therefore, stressed the need for Africa to enhance regional co-operation at the level of higher education and consider means to generate mobility within the continent, compared to the outflow of students to Europe and the US.

The event was organised by the Association of African Universities (AAU), in collaboration with the European University Association (EUA). It provided a platform for the participants to share ideas on how higher educational institutions in the Africa and European regions would cope with the changing demands of socio-economic environments.

In his address, the Vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Clifford Nii Boi Tagoe, noted that the higher education landscape in Africa continued to face challenges, such as inadequacy of funding, increased demand and high student-to-teacher ratio which affected the quality of education in the region.

He said Africa could produce citizens to compete on the global market only if there was the development of team work that would help train individuals through the sharing of resources.

“We, therefore, need to put in place mechanisms to facilitate this to the mutual benefit of all, ” he added.

He expressed gratitude to the organisers of the workshop for their initiative and assured them of his support to improve higher education in Africa and Europe.

In his welcome address, the General Secretary of AAU, Professor Goolam Mohamedbhai, indicated that academic mobility within Africa remained weak and needed to be carefully considered to limit brain drain and facilitate co-operation by the sharing of resources within the region.

He said the AAU was an international non-governmental organisation established by universities in Africa to promote co-operation among themselves and between the international academic community.

He added that the mission of the organisation was to raise the quality of higher education in Africa, as well as strengthen its contribution to African development.